


Missing Scenes from Ensan Case's WWII love story, Wingmen

by StacPolly



Category: Wingmen - Ensan Case
Genre: M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:47:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StacPolly/pseuds/StacPolly
Summary: A series of missing scenes from the wonderful WWII US naval fighter pilot gay love story, Wingmen, by Ensan Case. Case wrote in the 1960s, and his love story was very much ahead of its time. As a result though, he sadly had to cut to drifting curtains on all the most intimate scenes. I've tried to fill in some of the gaps. For anyone who enjoys slow burn, and men who struggle to articulate what they are feeling, Wingmen is now republished on Amazon, and I thoroughly recommend it.





	Missing Scenes from Ensan Case's WWII love story, Wingmen

They high-fived, the slap echoing across the hangar deck.

“Good game, Fred.”

“You did all right yourself, Skipper.”

"I'm getting too old for this." The Skipper nodded towards the watching crew. "But that's no excuse for Mr Higgins over there."

Fred wiped his brow on his sodden t-shirt. The rest of VF-20 were bent over their heaped stacks of shirts and wallets, pulling out cigarettes and lighters. At the other side of the impromptu hangar deck court, the losers, the torpedo pilots, took down the net and stowed it in a closet close to the lift.

It beat him, really, to think who’d put a volleyball net on the packing list for the _Constitution_. As the other fighter pilots drifted towards the quarterdeck, the Skipper headed for the tractor, where Mr Higgins, bored and aloof, had watched the game from driver’s seat. He dropped onto the fender, and Fred followed, wiping sweat from his eyes as the Skipper and Mr Higgins exchanged lazy words. With no idea why it was so, Fred knew with certainty that Duane Higgins disliked him, and so he left them to their conversation and amused himself, imagining a Staff Officer, somewhere back in Pearl, maybe even Washington, scratching out an equipment list for an aircraft carrier. What other strange things did some landlubber, back home, put on the naval shopping list, along with rubber contraceptives, cigarettes, and writing paper?

It’d been a good game, good to play along-side the Skipper too. He was always so serious, it was nice to see him playing with the rest of the boys. Even better to be on the same team, working together as closely and as in tune with each other, as when they were out there in the clouds, wingmen.

But even playing, the Skipper didn’t fully unbend, the only player still wearing his trousers, though he had removed his shirt and donned a dusty pair of sneakers which made him look suddenly, and unaccountably, young.

The Skipper lifted his undershirt, allowing the breeze from the gap in the deck to cool his heated, perspiration-covered skin. Fred turned sharply away, thanking his stars for the game that would explain the heat in his cheeks. Briefly he met Higgins’ curious gaze. Like the other night, in front of the Sherlock Holmes film, Higgins’ gaze was often on them.

Suddenly, he was aware of the Skipper's voice, a little firmer than usual, but still amused.

“You have to play one of the sports, Duane.”

Startled, Fred turned from Higgins’ shocked frown, to the Skipper.

“I will. I will. Just give me time to decide.” Higgins’ voice was brittle, not the usual over-friendly tone he used with the Skipper, as though to remind everyone that he’d been first, that he’d been Jack Hardigan's wingman before the rest of them had even finished training school.

“Better decide quick, it’s only a few days back to Pearl.”

“Yeah.” A pause. “I know.”

The Skipper stretched a sleeve of his t-shirt, and wiped the sweat from his eyes. “I don’t know about you—” his laughing eyes met Fred’s. “But I think I need a shower.”

Something caught in Fred’s throat, but Higgins was there, sitting between them, watching.

“That—that sounds like a good idea.”

He heaved himself to his feet.

“Don’t stay out in the sun too long, Duane. Might get burned.” The Skipper laughed as he got up.

There was no reply from Higgins and the Skipper didn’t seem to have realised what he’d said.

But Higgins knew all right.

Fred followed the chief across the hangar deck and they reached the island together. He waited, arm outstretched, to allow his superior to pass, but the Skipper grabbed his neck and roughed up his hair in a playful gesture, before pulling him through. Over by the tractor, Higgins' scowl deepened.

“Showers.”

They were alone at last in the passageway.

The Skipper stepped away, a shade too quickly, and quickened his pace. “Duane’s getting old before his time. It’d do him good to get a bit of exercise with the rest of the squadron.”

And there it was, the third time.

“I never heard anyone call Mr Higgins that before,” Fred observed, his eyes on the Skipper’s back as he followed him through the hatch.

The Skipper paused, but didn’t look round.

“Called Mr Higgins…what?”

“Duane, Skip. You called him Duane.”

“Well I always—.” The Skipper broke off, his shoulders suddenly tense. He cursed, under his breath. “I did, didn’t I? Must’ve been the excitement of the game.” He turned back to Fred, a frown forming on his streaming brow. “Don’t mention this to the others, Fred. I—well, I don’t know why I’m always telling you things, but Mr Higgins was my wingman, though sometimes I can barely remember what it was like, before you.” He shook his head. “And when I was promoted, it was my way of showing him respect. He _is_ my Executive Officer, and—”

“And a very good one, if you don’t mind me saying, Sir,” Fred broke in, to forestall any further admissions that the Skipper might later regret.

He was rewarded with a wry smile. “He sure is. Now, get your bathrobe Lieutenant.”

But when they reached the stateroom Fred shared with three others, the Skipper followed him inside, causing a new Ensign lounging on Fred’s own top bunk to leap to his feet, cracking his head against the overhead.

“Serves you right.” Fred grabbed his bathroom and shower sandals from his locker.

The Skipper was eyeing the young Ensign’s temple dispassionately.

“You’ll live, but get down to the MO if it looks like causing trouble.”

Visibly embarrassed the new Ensign nodded.

The Skipper was a lot less concerned than the night Fred became “Killer Trusteau” that was for sure, when he dragged him, bleeding and sore, to the Medical Officer.

Perhaps the Skipper too, was reminded of that night, for when they reached the Skipper’s deserted stateroom, and Fred prepared to wait outside, the Skipper motioned him in. “Sit on my bunk while I find my kit. How’s your own head doing?”

“Oh,” said Fred, fingering his temple. “Hardly sore at all, now.”

The Skipper reappeared by his side, tilting his head towards the light, his fingers drifting over the tender patch by his eye. “You’ll have a scar. That was a near miss.”

Swallowing, Fred opened his mouth once, then again.

“Very. The mechanics said if it’d been an inch either way it would have blown my ear off. And,” he added, suddenly realising it, “the rest of my head, I guess.”

It came out strangled, but not for the reason the Skipper probably assumed.

Snatching his hand away, the Skipper turned to his locker. “I’m glad you were up there with me, anyhow.”

“Me too, Skip.”

Fred followed the Skipper, haltingly, to the Head. Yankie saucepans being needed more for planes than showers, the shower-room, like the Head, had no privacy dividers. Somehow, he and the Skipper had never showered at the same time before. With Brogan yes, Mr Higgins even, laughing and joking, at least when Fred first came aboard, but the Skipper always showered alone.

His gaze on the bulkhead behind Fred, the Skipper peeled off his damp t-shirt and kicked off his sneakers. Fred made haste to remove his shirt too, lingering a moment too long under the damp cotton.

The Skipper. He was, well, he was big. A broad, tall, bear of a man. His pectoral muscles and waist were defined, a narrow trail of hair running downwards, below his waistband. And, as Fred emerged from his tent of cotton, the pants came off too, the skivvies following. He gulped as the Skipper turned on the hose, just enough to wet his hair.

“Come on, or do I have to wet you down here too?” The Skipper was referring to the liquor-based wetting down that all the new junior grade officers received on their promotion.

Fred grunted, struggling with his own waistband. Of course the Skipper had already seen him in his skivvies, back after he was first pulled out of the drink. Somehow that clinical MO’s office, with its attendant steel-eyed medic, was different to the steamy atmosphere of the quarterdeck showers.

The Skipper turned the hose on him with a grin that made him seem young once more. And, thought Fred, suddenly, the Skipper _was_ young. It was just the rest of them were so young that an experienced pre-war naval officer like Jack Hardigan seemed like Old Man Time himself. But underneath that neat, carefully pressed, Summer White, was a full-blooded man.

 _Very_ full-blooded.

His cheeks heating, Fred dragged his eyes away and concentrated on shucking off his shorts, before dipping under the hose to wet his hair.

The water off once more, they lathered up in silence.

“We’ll be on stand-down over Christmas.”

Fred risked a glance. The Skipper’s head was swamped in soap suds. He didn’t risk looking any further south.

“Moana hotel, Hawaii.”

“Oh–that’s good.” He thought for a bit. “It’s not on the notice-board.”

The Skip quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t know how, but you always get the news first, whether it’s from me or an Admiral. We’d better be thankful you’re _our_ Killer Trusteau because you know more about this ship than I do, sometimes.”

Fred shrugged. “In the right place at the right time, I guess.”

“You’re different.” He ran his hand back through the suds, clearing them from his brow. “That's why people tell you. You’re different from the rest. You _think_.”

Like me, was unsaid.

“I guess. Maybe I had to think about my place in the world maybe a little earlier than the rest of them.”

“Because you were adopted, you mean?”

Fancy the Skipper remembering that about him.

Fred flipped on the hose.

“Not only that.”

The Skipper returned to his shower head, letting the water wash over his head and down his torso, dragging the soap into trails, all pointing in one direction.

“You’ll be glad of some privacy,” Fred commented. “And just think, a real bed, not a bunk.”

Proper food, sunshine, a breeze drifting through an open sea-view window. He could just imagine it. And maybe, maybe, if the Skipper wasn’t too busy, maybe they’d have time to get away from the other, go for a walk longer than their evening strolls round the flight deck.

“Yeah, ‘bout that.” The Skipper had turned and Fred could only see his broad back, tapering to somewhere Fred had no right to rest his eyes. “Christmas, it’s a busy time of year. I thought we should all go two to a room.”

Frank stared at him. As Lieutenant Commander, the Skipper would be allocated a room all to himself, even if the others had to share twins.

“Mr Higgins will be glad of some time with you. Said he never sees you around any more.”

The Skipper’s head bowed and Fred wished he could see his face.

“I thought—section leader and wingman. What do you think?”

Frozen, Fred stood under the steaming flow.

“You and me?”

“Yeah.” The Skipper glanced over his shoulder, his eyes drifting down Fred’s chest, before he yanked them back to his face. “I thought it would be nice. I’ve got some new tactics to discuss with you anyway, before I speak to Staff.”

“If you’re sure,” Fred said.

The Skipper turned, and nodded.

“I’m sure.”

 


End file.
